While I agree that video is the way of the future, I also believe that advertising as we know is today will be changing significantly in the very near future. Consumers want, and deserve, more than messages directed at them. It's an opportunity for the brands and companies that step up to engage consumers. Quality multimedia content that is relevant to the viewers and invites further interaction has tremendous potential to build brand reputation.

To determine which pages are relevant to a search query, Facebook utilizes a natural language processor (both to suggest search terms and identify connections) combined with algorithms that examine the “nodes” or connections of a searcher’s network to find content friends have “liked” that match the search. Graph Search can also consider second-degree connections or friends of friends, as well as content which has been shared either directly with the searcher or publicly on Facebook.

Unlike standard search engines, Facebook owns all of the data (page posts, photos, videos, etc.)which has ever been posted to the network. This inherent advantage enabled Facebook to implement a unique indexing structure to categorize the data based on a number of predefined properties. This indexing of owned data allows Facebook to quickly search, sort, identify and return relevant content.

They dubbed this infrastructure “Unicorn.” Similar to a standard search engine, it supports search queries including “multi-hop” queries in a series of steps while searching “nodes” in a similar style to the way a search engine utilizes keywords.

If your impression of social media is limited to your friends posting cat videos and teenagers glued to their iPhones – think again.

Social media possesses incredible influential power, and since the advent of the Internet it's evolved from a simple way for people to keep in touch into a massive global network connecting organizations, communities and people.Social media is the easiest, fastest and most explosive way to transmit and receive information! And best of all – absolutely anyone can take advantage of it.

Check out the infographic to learn how to embrace the ubiquity of social media and use its power to better yourself, your business, or cause, and find a host of statistics and facts that may surprise you about the influence of social media...

If your impression of social media is limited to your friends posting cat videos and teenagers glued to their iPhones – think again.

Social media possesses incredible influential power, and since the advent of the Internet it's evolved from a simple way for people to keep in touch into a massive global network connecting organizations, communities and people.Social media is the easiest, fastest and most explosive way to transmit and receive information! And best of all – absolutely anyone can take advantage of it.

Check out the infographic to learn how to embrace the ubiquity of social media and use its power to better yourself, your business, or cause, and find a host of statistics and facts that may surprise you about the influence of social media...

INFOGRAPHIC: What Makes Social Media so Influential? via @MYDstudio http://sco.lt/...

"If your impression of social media is limited to your friends posting cat videos and teenagers glued to their iPhones – think again.

Social media possesses incredible influential power, and since the advent of the Internet it's evolved from a simple way for people to keep in touch into a massive global network connecting organizations, communities and people.Social media is the easiest, fastest and most explosive way to transmit and receive information! And best of all – absolutely anyone can take advantage of it.

Check out the infographic to learn how to embrace the ubiquity of social media and use its power to better yourself, your business, or cause, and find a host of statistics and facts that may surprise you about the influence of social media"...

INFOGRAPHIC: What Makes Social Media so Influential? via @MYDstudio http://sco.lt/...

Content marketing isn't a panacea. It's simply the fuel that should support your entire online business strategy. Maybe we need to stop calling it content marketing, give it and our customers the respect it deserves and go back to just calling it content?

How B2C marketers employed B2B ideas this year's Super Bowl SUMMARY: B2B marketers largely avoided the Super Bowl this year, writes Tom Nightingale, president of sales and marketing for ModusLink. But B2C firms clearly emulated B2B by seeking a conversation with the buyer, "evidenced by the fact that 26 of the 52 national TV spots on The Super Bowl touted Twitter handles," Nightingale writes. Big-game marketers were also consistent in their use of teasers and ancillary marketing materials to make sure their spots weren't isolated efforts. "While they may not have been the funniest batch of ads, they probably were the most productive and high yielding ads," Nightingale concludes.

Flurry performs cluster analysis, group countries by application category usage to reveal important differences in how apps must differ per market.

While this analysis only scratches the surface of variation in usage of 20,000 apps across more than 800 million devices being used in 30 different countries, it shows systematic variation across country clusters even at a high level. This has important implications considering the great potential for growth of connected devices and app use in countries and country groupings such as China and the Lumbering Giants, given their large populations and relatively low current rate of device penetration.

Excerpted from article by SEOmoz:" It's not that SEO is dead or that links are obsolete, or whatever all that crazy talk is that's been going around. It's that there's a way to integrate all the pieces into the big picture of building a better company by building an online community around it.

There are lots of benefits to building a community around your company, but if I had to choose a few, here are my top five:1. It will help you weather Google’s algorithms;2. It will add equity and value to your business;3. It will help you have purpose;4. It will help you stand out;5. It will put the focus on goals, not tools.

Here is a super awesome infographic and the play-by-play breakdown of each step in the process. Whether you’re building a community from scratch, or you’re working to grow an existing one, you can use this process to get your community rolling or optimize and leverage what you already have.

[Here are only main sections of article]:

[1] Define your business objectives.So before you do that, think about this:1) What makes your company unique?2) Why do you care?3) What do you want to build?4) Who do you want to build it for?

[2] Elect your team.Here’s a few tips for getting the right team in place so that you can start working toward achieving your goals:1) Understand the roles;2) Elect, don’t just assign;3) Work together as one, big, happy family;

[3] Develop your strategy.Think about strategy in three pieces: the what, the when, and the how.1) The what: campaigns;2) The when: execution calendar;3) The how: ongoing efforts.

[4] Empower your team.Do not skip this step.I repeat. This step is important.You can empower your team for success by addressing a few simple questions:1) Why are we doing this?2) How much work is involved?3) When will we see results?

[5] Learn your industry.One of your number one priorities in marketing your business online is providing the best possible customer experience. And you can’t do that if you’re not learning continuously.

[6] Create the value.Ok, now we’re getting to the real good stuff. Value is what your community is built upon, whether that’s “tangible” stuff like blog posts, videos, resources, and tools; or an approach, perspective, or virtue that is the basis for common ground. Value that focuses on your customer and their experience is what attracts people to your business, your brand, and your community.Foundational content is the more static stuff on your website...The challenge with foundational content is to listen to your customer. Observe their needs, the things in life that they struggle with, and then communicate how your products or services address those things.Community building content is the stuff that’s more dynamic in nature and usually lives on your blog. It’s the content that is less about what you do and more about what you know.

[7] Share the value.It works like this: 80% of the time, share other people’s great stuff. But don’t just retweet it or hit the share button and place it on your feed. Read it. Internalize it. And then curate it. Tell people why it’s good. This helps you learn and also keeps the focus where it belongs: on the value that you're providing for the reader.20% of the time, share your own stuff, but make it remarkable. This is the community building stuff that we just talked about.

[8] Build and foster growth.There are lots of things that you can do to foster and grow your community. Here’s just a few:1) Get in there;2) Embrace offline efforts;3) Acknowledge and show appreciation.

[9] Measure and analyze (and communicate).Everything you do will include testing, feedback, measurement, analysis, adjustments, rinsing, and repeating. And then, you’ve got to communicate this data to your team (and/or your client).

Keep these final things in mind:- This is about building a brand;- Stay grounded in your goals;- Don’t give up."

Thank you Laura, I totally agree with you that Facebook has too much clutter (I look forward to see the changes that are planned for the next week, that should ameliorate this fact). But I am surprised what you say on LinkedIn, I use it a lot and I've never had any problems with phishing. Anyway, the important thing is that each of us finds its way in the middle of all the possibilities that are opening to us up through social media.

LinkedIn was sending everyone connected to me invites. I didn't know until a few people began complaining about all the invites I was sending them. But, I hadn't sent any out. It was LinkedIn. Check with your contacts. I put LinkedIn as a junk filter so I never get requests from anyone now.

Often, the best way to reach a huge goal is to break it down into small, less intimidating goals.

To help small businesses tackle the daunting task of developing a social media presence (without feeling overwhelmed), Intuit has created a "Path to Social Success in 2013" infographic.

The 12-month plan divides the goal of achieving social success into quarters, each focusing on a specific goal:

First quarter: Take social media inventory.Second quarter: Work on relationships.Third quarter: Integrate everything.Fourth quarter: Look backward, then forward.

For each quarter, Intuit then lists big ideas for each month to reach that goal.

For example, the first quarter is about taking social media inventory, so January is dedicated to assessing your social fitness; February, to revisiting your social goals; and March, to establishing ways to measure success, such as number of followers and fans, traffic to website, social mentions across platforms, share of social conversations, and social influence.

Excellent info on how to increase your social media impact. Gives information on how to tackle a social media presence with ease and enables you to creates a path to social success through its many tips. 12 month plan for developing the social media success that will help you succeed

Often, the best way to reach a huge goal is to break it down into small, less intimidating goals.

To help small businesses tackle the daunting task of developing a social media presence (without feeling overwhelmed), Intuit has created a "Path to Social Success in 2013" infographic.

The 12-month plan divides the goal of achieving social success into quarters, each focusing on a specific goal:

First quarter: Take social media inventory.

Second quarter: Work on relationships.

Third quarter: Integrate everything.

Fourth quarter: Look backward, then forward.

For each quarter, Intuit then lists big ideas for each month to reach that goal.

For example, the first quarter is about taking social media inventory, so January is dedicated to assessing your social fitness; February, to revisiting your social goals; and March, to establishing ways to measure success, such as number of followers and fans, traffic to website, social mentions across platforms, share of social conversations, and social influence.

The Path to Social Media Success in 2013: A 12-Month Plan [Infographic] via @MYDstudio http://sco.lt/...

Instagram has slowly been transitioning towards a model where users can interact with its content on the web, and today it has introduced a full newsfeed for desktop browsers. Now, when you go to Instagram.com, users can see all of the photos posted from the users they follow, like photos by clicking them, and take advantage of inline commenting. For the times when you're not on-the-go and want to catch up on your friends' photos, this should be a much easier way to do so. While Instagram has long maintained focus on providing an excellent mobile experience, it has been building out its web presenceever since being purchased by Facebook. Now, users should be able to get the full Instagram experience on their laptop or desktop — though images can still only be uploaded from your mobile. Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom wrote that while he believes that photos should be shared while on-the-go, Instagram's web presence will help users have a fast and simple brwosing experience. Instagram says the new feed is live now, though some users are experiencing trouble pulling it up as of this writing.

In October 2012, India reached 60.2 million active monthly users for Facebook which makes it #3 in the ranking of all countries. If we thought 2012 was a high growth year, wait and watch what 2013 has to offer!

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.